Technical Field
The present disclosure is directed to a package having a removable protective layer attached to the leadframe during molding to prevent mold flashing from forming on the leads.
Description of the Related Art
As consumer demand increases for semiconductor packages, manufacturers face significant challenges to manufacture and form packages by the thousands with zero to minimal defects. Additionally, as semiconductor packages are mounted within an electronic device, manufacturers face significant challenges to avoid mounting defects that may cause short circuiting of semiconductor packages, effectively reducing their life span or making them defective. Semiconductor packages often include a die, a leadframe, and a molding compound. For example, the leadframe is mounted to a leadframe tape. The die is mounted to a die pad of the leadframe coupled to the leadframe tape, and electrical connections are formed to couple the die to leads of the leadframe. The molding compound is then formed to encase the leadframe, the die, and the electrical connections to form a semiconductor package. This may be done on a large scale to produce thousands of semiconductor packages in single manufacturing batch.
The above formation technique is utilized to form several semiconductor packages in a single manufacturing batch. Unfortunately, when utilizing the above formation technique, molding compound may cover the leads and the die pad of the leadframe if debris gets under the leadframe tape when forming the molding compound. In other words, mold flashing may occur in the above process. Mold flashing is when molding compound covers all or portions of an exposed surface of a die pad and leads of a leadframe. This coverage reduces the effectiveness of semiconductor packages when utilized in an electronic device or makes semiconductor packages unusable or defective. Other difficulties exist as well. First, when applying solder balls to mount a semiconductor package within an electronic device, if solder balls are placed incorrectly, solder balls may touch multiple electrical connections and short circuit the semiconductor package in an electronic device. Second, to avoid solder ball defects or solder overlap between leads, die pads, and electrical connections or contacts within an electronic device, leads and die pads of a leadframe must be placed farther apart to reduce the chances of solder overflow and overlap.